bash find: get directory of found file

juliosun2024-04-10 18:31

With GNU find:

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find . -name foo.mp4 -printf '%h\n'

With other finds, provided directory names don't contain newline characters:

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find . -name foo.mp4 |
  LC_ALL=C sed 's|/[^/]*$||'

Or:

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find . -name foo.mp4 -exec dirname {} \;

though that means forking a process and running one dirname command per file.

If you need to run a command on that path, you can do (standard syntax):

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find . -name "featured.mp4" -exec sh -c '
  for file do
    dir=${file%/*}
    ffmpeg -i "$file" -c:v libvpx -b:v 1M -c:a libvorbis "$dir" featured.webm
  done' sh {} +

Though in this case, you may be able to use -execdir (a BSD extension also available in GNU find), which chdir()s to the file's directory:

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find . -name "featured.mp4" -execdir \
  ffmpeg -i {} -c:v libvpx -b:v 1M -c:a libvorbis . featured.webm \;